David Hockney, the revolutionary and disruptive British artist, has died at the age of 88 | David Hockney

David Hockney, the iconic British artist who revolutionized the 20th century, has died aged 88.

He made his name as a pop artist in the 60s and is perhaps best known for his paintings of swimming pools that helped define him. Los Angeles beautiful. Works such as A Big Splash and Portrait of an Artist (Quain with Two Figures) depict scenes of love, lust and loss unfolding under a sun-drenched city skyline.

But Hockney’s six-year career cannot be defined by a single period. He created shape-shifting images using collage, experimented with abstract painting and, in later life, explored the possibilities of creating art from the emerging 3D technology.

Born in Bradford in 1937, Hockney was the fourth of five children in what he described as a “working class family”. His parents encouraged their son’s early artistic promise. He studied art at Bradford College and sold his first painting – a portrait of his father – for £10 Yorkshire Artists Exhibition in 1957.

Since he was a conscientious objector, he completed his military service for two years before enrolling at the Royal College of London. Art in 1959. He quickly became known as an exceptional artist, despite his rebellious reputation. His refusal to draw a life drawing of a female model almost prevented him from graduating – in fact, he submitted a Life Drawing for Diploma, which depicts a male athlete from an American physique magazine. Hockney also refused to write the essay required for the final examination, believing that he should be judged on his paintings alone. The RCA, aware of the talent he was promoting, bent his rules to award him a diploma.

This was the beginning of a career in which Hockney had no concerns about the problems of conservatives. His 1961 painting, We Two Boys Together Clinging, named after a Walt Whitman poem, was an early sign of this. Subsequent works, such as 1962’s Cleaning Teeth, Early Evening (10pm) W11, featuring Colgate tubes and chains, depicted gay life with an honesty and openness that was at odds with Britain, where homosexuality remained a crime until 1967.

With his signature brown hair, round, round eyes and cigar dangling from his mouth, Hockney became a fixture at 60s parties in London and the US. Shared with Andy Warhol, Ossie Clark and Dennis Hopper, he made a name for himself as an actor and athlete. Yet while he lived the fun-filled life of a drug-addicted bohemian, he never forgot his hard work in Yorkshire. Even after suffering a stroke in 2012, which temporarily impaired his speech, he continued to work.

After moving to LA in the mid-60s, his rough and tumble works gained acclaim for their ability to convey deep and complex emotions to the screen. Man in the Shower in Beverly Hills (1964) found the actress hitting the nail on the head as she went for a more glamorous style. In November 2018, Hockney’s 1972 masterpiece, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), sold for $90.3m (£70.2m) at Christie’s, a world record for a living artist at the time. The work, inspired by the death of Hockney and his lover, was criticized by critics, including Jonathan Jones of the Guardian, who explained the same year that “the melting of calm and sorrow”.

While working on one of his LA paintings, Hockney took several photos at a Polaroids camera and accidentally stumbled on the next part of his career: photocollage, or “joiners” as he calls them. By grouping several images together, Hockney is able to see his passion and ideas. His portraits of his mother and British art dealer John Kasmin showed a strong cubist influence that drew comparisons to his idol, Picasso.

Over the years, Hockney has experimented with many new areas including design and costumes for operas and ballets. The development of technology fascinated the artist: the way his work changed, his skills used the photocopier, the fax machine, the printer and the printing press. iPad – the latter allows him to create digital portraits that he can happily send to friends and acquaintances. But his passion for technology came back to one thing: “I just love technology that’s about photography,” he told Interview magazine in 2013. “I enjoy anything that makes a photo.”

A lifelong smoker, Hockney maintains that cigarettes have been beneficial to his mental health. Writing in the Guardian in 2007 he called the UK’s smoking ban “a very impressive piece of technology”.

He returned to Yorkshire from Los Angeles in 2005, but in 2013 tragedy struck when his 23-year-old assistant Dominic Elliott was found dead at his home in Bridlington. Elliott was found to be high on household cleaners after consuming a variety of recreational drugs including ecstasy and cocaine. A coroner ruled that Elliott’s death was an accident. Hockney said that for a long time he decided to give up art, because he could not paint after Elliott’s death.

Hockney is believed to have turned down several times and turned down invitations to paint the queen’s portrait. His iconoclasm made its way into a 2001 book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Paths of the Old Mastersin which he challenged the established ideas about how the great paintings of the past were created. It managed to anger and copy critics and historians.

“To teach people to draw is to teach people to see,” he told the Yorkshire Post in 2018. And there’s no doubt that his art had a huge impact on how we see the 20th century – not that he would have seen it that way.

“I don’t meditate too much,” he said told the Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone in 2015. I’m living now.